The closest thing I could think of that men go through is like a prisoner of war being tortured, and then coming back from that experience. It's traumatic and grounding and makes you commit to the world. Also, because you want all of these things for your kid.

Before I had a kid, I was off in some kind of cosmic state all of the time, and thinking about the world beyond, thinking about intellectual stuff. And then, after I had a kid, just the whole process of giving birth is just so earthy and grounding and insane and it's all just an intense physical ordeal.

They [investment bankers] don't even want the stuff that they've got, you know the fancy cars and houses. Their consumption is basically just a keeping up with the Joneses or let's buy the markers of success because this is what I'm supposed to have and this is what I'm supposed to do. And they are working so hard that they don't even have the time to think about what they might actually desire.

I'm totally a narcissist, so I was doing all this performance and having lots of weird ego time, and learning to set aside my love for the ego and find a deeper love for myself and through that seeing myself as one with all beings. And through loving myself, loving all people in the world, that was my cure for narcissism, the only cure.

So Nemerov showed us this picture, which is of Apollo flaying Marcius. You don't think of Apollo as being the sort of person who would skin someone alive. But the story behind it was that there was this guy who was a really great musician, and all the women loved him, and people started saying he was the best musician in the world, so Apollo got jealous and he challenged this guy to a musical dual. They would each play a song and the muses would judge who was the better musician.

I remember there was this one lady shaman who said that having children puts a hole in your soul. And the only way to get it back is for your children to die. And, you know, monks don't have families.

I started off in architecture, and I just couldn't fit into the vibe there. I just felt more at home in the Art Department, so I just ended up there. But I would be an architect if it didn't require so much engineering.